Stoker Weekend

I found another horror writing conference - Stoker Weekend next June. It's about the same price as the other conferences I've found, and the guest of honor is OH MY GOD Peter Straub!

Yeah... Peter Straub! The dude who wrote Floating Dragon? And Ghost Story? And In the Night Room? Okay, okay... and YES, yes yes yes, The Talisman and Black House with... ah... my writing hero, Stephen King?!

Oh yeah that guy. ;)

Guess how I found out about this one? I became friends with KillerCon on Facebook. Through that friendship I became friends with Cutting Block Press. On one of their posts earlier today, someone commented that horror writing conferences were really starting to pick up, now with KillerCon and the WHC and Stoker Weekend.

Stoker Weekend? I said to myself.

Roughly fifteen seconds later I was having a joygasm as I looked delightedly at the home page of another horror writers' convention I want to attend. There's a ridiculous amount of cool stuff happening at this conference - yes, OH MY GOD Peter Straub is gonna be there, but there are also workshops, meet and greets, readings, a "pitch-a-thon"... man it sounds like a blast!

Now I needs to get to penny pinchin'...

Everything seems to be slowly falling into place, it took signing up for KillerCon for this to open up the way it has. Y'all wish me luck... I feel like I might be going down a rabbit hole soon.

The gent frowning at you at the top of this entry is none other than Bram Stoker himself, BTW. ;)

Contest Practice, topic: Murder in the Igloo

I was able to get a little farther tonight, at least it felt that way. I was also able to get all the words in this time, and even before the halfway point, I think. I also increased my word count by almost 100 words, which is absolutely true even though it sounds like CRAZY TALK. Wonder if that'll be a continuing trend or if it was just a fluke.

Ending is rushed, but... serviceable, I guess. I liked the way this one turned. Today's prompt was given to me by Jemi Fraser, via a comment on Monday's entry. Thanks for helping me practice for the contest, Jemi! I really appreciate it. Her prompts were:

Topic: Murder in the Igloo
Words: snow, blubber, knife, bear, sun
Leadoff sentence: see below (first sentence)

Did you know polar bears are all left handed?

The Inuit trader's words echoed in Reese's head as he worked his way across the snow from the sled to the igloo's nearly-buried entrance.

I found that out the hard way, the man had said, back in the last town before the ice cap took over what little lush tundra was left in this late month of November.

Reese had stopped to stock up on supplies, buying a new range knife and half a pound of blubber to feed to his dogs. While he was there, the one-eyed fur trader had decided to get friendly and strike up a conversation about bear hunting.

But Reese wasn't interested in hunting bears. He was a hunter of men.

He'd followed the blazing trail laid down by the sun across the icepack for the last sixteen hours. Disorienting, how it just hovered on the lip of the horizon like a rolling, bloody eyeball.

What was it the trader had told him? "I took the bear's right paw, that was the custom," the man had said in his strange accent. "He was a man-eater. But it angers the spirits to kill such a great animal. Better to take its paw so it may have the chance to live, and have learned to stay away from men."

Bullshit is what it sounded like to Tom Reese, but the farther he got out here the more he thought about the bear in the trader's story and how it reminded him of Garrity, the man he'd come all the way out here to kill.

He'd lost his arm in the firefight, but that wasn't enough for Montano. The old man had sent Reese to the end of the world to finish the job of silencing the traitor forever.

Reese pulled himself back to the present, crunching across the pink-tinted snow. Garrity wasn't here, he was sure, but there would be something here that led him to Garrity. He was very close now.

Which was all the more reason to be careful.

The bear took my eye, the trader whispered in Reese's memory as he began to methodically clear the igloo's entrance. He could have taken my life. I was lucky.

Lucky, Reese thought, and that was exactly the moment when the yellow, furred paw burst out of the snow beyond the opening and clawed across the back of his arm.

Reese jerked backward in surprise, barely feeling the ragged gouges in his flesh. Blood poured over the nylon of his blue parka, but he was oblivious.

All thought was lost to him when he saw the creature pulling itself out of the snow, widening the hole he'd made.

Garrity must have left it for me, he thought, horrified. Days ago.

And God, it must be hungry.

I wrote the last three paragraphs of that in a literal frenzy. This is bare, unedited stuff, let me tell ya. I could barely read my chicken-scratch. And my hand was KILLIN ME, friends. Still, it felt good to get it done. I want to keep doing this as much as I can, because it's REALLY good practice. I want to have this process down pat before I go to Vegas.

Gonna have to take the timer out of the equation because I keep staring at it, and I want to start getting a feel for how long fifteen minutes is without constantly looking at the timer to see how much time's left. Wonder if they'll let us keep a watch?

If you'd like to leave me a challenge, please feel free. What did you think of this one?

Contest Practice, topic: The Living Dead

Howdy. Thanks to those who submitted a few prompts for contest practice for me yesterday! I have the first attempt ready. I definitely need to practice more at this. I managed to get about two paragraphs from the end. Right now, I'm just going to post what I was able to write. I may try to finish it later.

I chose Cruella Collett's prompt first, mainly because it was the first one to hit my inbox. Her prompts were:

Topic: The living dead
Words: shortcut, bushel, fist, tureen, mangrove
Leadoff sentence: see below (first sentence)

"Don't look back!" Gerda Aldrin said, as the last conscious look in her eyes faded into a blank stare of nothingness.

Christopher choked back a sob and transferred his baby sister to his other arm. They'd been running for nearly thirty-six hours now, and Elsa was heavy for a two-year-old. Christopher was exhausted.

And he was only eleven.

"Come on," he said to his sister. She blinked at him with sleepy eyes.

"Ma?" she asked.

"No, mom has to stay here," he said, and the black reality of that truth rolled over him like a boulder made of fear. He switched her to the other arm again - it wasn't much of a help - and pushed past the mangrove trees, on into the deeper swamp as quickly as he could.

Before their mother had a chance to open her eyes again and reach out for her children, dead fingers clutching, teeth clicking together like the ball bearings in Christopher's broken skateboard.

An hour later, Christopher gently lay his baby sister down on a dry hummock of swamp grass and looked around. He'd been sure this was some kind of shortcut, but now in the darkness - and through the shifting gray scrim of exhaustion threatening to bludgeon him into unconsciousness - everything looked the same. He sat down beside Elsa and punched at the ground, not realizing how mucky it was.

A hand closed over his fist.

Christopher jerked backward, eyes popping, mouth drawn down into a silent scream. He kicked at the mound rising out of the squelchy black mud. Eyes opened in the dirt, one bleary with mud, the other a clear and questioning blue. The bump of its rising head looked like an upside-down soup tureen, handles for ears, smooth dome of brow curving back for what seemed like forever.

Christopher grabbed his sister, shaking her out of her thin sleep. She began to wail immediately. Chris clamed down on her arm as hard as he could and her little mouth turned into a perfect "o" of pain.

"Else!" he screamed, crying out again as the creature in the muck - once human just like them - pulled him closer.

"RUN!" he cried.

OK, so that's what I came up with for the first attempt. I left out one of the words (bushel; it was coming in those last two paragraphs), and I wasn't able to get to the ending. Close, but no cigar. My hand was singing frickin Ave Maria by the time I was done, too... I think I need to do this more than once a night... but I gotta work up to it. I had a lot of fun with this, though. It was weird - no planning, no thought, just launch into a story while the clock is ticking... but it was fun. More will follow in future entries, I'm sure.

What do y'all think? I know what I think: MORE PRACTICE!!

If any of you would like to leave me a challenge, please feel free. I only need a horror-related topic, five random words, and a leadoff sentence to start. I'll take care of the rest. Thanks to Cruella for this great beginning to a new path!

Primal Scream Blogfest

Hello, readers! I've missed my blog friends. Things have been a little discombobulated in the Miller brainpan for the last week or so (as I'm sure you understand). I'm getting back into the swing of things and am going to get back to blogging regularly as quickly as I can. I'd really like to thank every one of you that left such kind words and thoughts on my post yesterday. Every bit of support I've gotten from so many corners of the internet has really helped me pull through this. The hardest thing to do is face something like that alone, and there wasn't a minute this week that I felt lonely. So thanks.

I missed my chance to post on the actual day for Raquel Byrnes's Primal Scream blogfest (so very sorry, Raquel!), but I'm making up for it today. I'm posting an excerpt from my short story, "Yellow Bus Tuesday". I hope it disturbs you. Bwah-hahahaha! There were 24 entries in this blogfest as of this morning, and I'm adding mine after this is posted. There are some amazing reads over there so you should definitely go check out the list. And if you're not familiar with Raquel, you should be! She's killer. Pun intended. ;)

So, without further ado, here's my entry in the Primal Scream Blogfest.

Yellow Bus Tuesday
(excerpted)

Suddenly I am standing on the edge of the pool again, blood dripping down my arm. It’s not wet nylon against my skin; it’s ruffled taffeta. The material is tacky with drying blood. I’m not twelve; I’m eighteen. It’s not summer; it’s late spring. The smell of chlorine and cut grass fills my nose.

I look into the pool and see someone floating face down in the water. There are ribbons of blood snaking out from beneath him. His black suit jacket balloons up and down like a spent bladder. I hold out my hand to the body and see my palm is painted with blood.

“Nathan?” I ask the floating body.

But Nathan doesn’t respond, doesn’t turn over. I look down at myself; my dress is soaked in Nathan's blood.

I bite my lip, trying to remember. We had gone to a party… come back here… and Nathan… Nathan had wanted to kiss me… I think…

********

Nathan is standing in front of my father’s entertainment center, admiring the blank dead eye of the 38” television screen. “That’s some setup,” he says.

I am standing behind him and slightly to the left, my palms restless in the taffeta of my dress. It rustles softly in the quiet room, whispering like a ghost. “Yeah,” I say. It is all I can think to say – I’m nervous. My parents are gone and Nathan and I are here alone. The house has become a quiet, dozing beast. We are admiring a television set in one of the chambers of its heart. I close my eyes for an instant, willing the image away. When I open them again, Nathan has turned around and is looking at me with that crooked smile of his.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod.

“Good,” he says, and holds out his arms.

I walk into them and put my arms around his waist, closing my eyes and pressing my cheek against the smooth lapel of his rented tuxedo. He smells like cherries and musk. His boutonnière is a rose nestled into a spray of baby’s breath but it seems to have no scent at all.

He brings his left hand up slowly, skimming along the skin of my back. It’s an open-back dress. My mother argued against it but I held out and got my way. I shiver a little at his touch, liking the feel of his hands on me. His fingers tickle through the hairs on the nape of my neck.

“I like your hair better down,” he says.

I step back with a smile and pull my hair out of the bun it’s been twisted into. It falls in a long, clean wave over my shoulders. He smiles and steps closer, his eyes closing as he leans in to kiss me.

Then things get a little... weird.

I see Nathan, leaning forward in his black tux, his hair a little mussed, his eyes closed, that beautiful, terrible, little crooked grin on his lips. Then I blink and his face changes – the skin of his face is turning color, from a healthy peach to a deep, slaty gray; his body is rippling, moving underneath his clothes. His eyes blink open wide and then I realize they haven’t opened at all; his eyelids have simply disappeared and left nothing underneath but dull, flat, black discs that yawn at me like open, empty graves. His nose grows and flattens out and widens up until it becomes as angular and pointed as the prow of a ship. His jaw elongates and his mouth opens just a bit; that crooked grin is now filled with row upon row of vicious, hooked teeth. His fingers have melded together and his hands have turned into flat gray triangles of rough flesh.

He moves towards me and a gurgling hiss issues from his thick throat, rising and falling, undulating like a crooning song. I realize it’s a sound of desire. The triangles at the ends of his coat arms twitch in anticipation of running along the planes of my flesh. Those black round saucers in his face hold me still; I can feel their coldness working into my skin, into my blood, into my bones.

He has become the shark in my dreams, the giant fish that swims through my sleep three nights out of five and eats up all my good days in cold hungry bites. I can feel that hunger as he edges towards me, a thick line of spittle running out of his pointed mouth and over his white chin. His teeth click and grind together and he makes a low mewling sound in the back of his throat. The sound is clogged with spit and lust. My heart is beating hard and fast and I can feel my pulse in my throat, in my temples. I can hear it rushing in my ears. It sounds like the ocean.

I reach behind me, my hand trip-fall-running along the shelf of the entertainment center. I feel familiar shapes; picture frames, bric-a-brac. Then the cool, reassuring angles of one of my mother’s crystal Wessex candlesticks are under my fingertips.

I don’t think. I pick it up and swing. The heavy leaden crystal smashes into the flat triangle of Nathan's new nose.

The flat black plates of his eyes close as he falls, and I realize he has eyelids again.

This realization is driven home when his eyes open and he looks up at me from the living room floor. His eyes are filled with pain and bewilderment, but underneath those emotions is an expression I recognize.

The anger of denial. I’ve seen it before.

I know it is there.

I know it.

I can feel it.

I clutch the candlestick tighter in my hands and ready myself for what is to come.

“Baby?” he says, from the floor. He reaches a hand up towards me. I bare my teeth and wade in closer to him, churning my feet across the floor like a fisherwoman who has found herself landing a catch far too big for her frame. The candlestick has become my gaff, my club. It has become my net. It is my cross and my stake and my hammer. I raise it over my head and smile. Spit drips down over my lips and falls in three white drops onto Nathan’s shiny, sweaty forehead. A lock of his dark hair has fallen across his brow and it is matted and thick, clotted with his blood. His eyes are blank as he looks up at me.

Will you?

“I will,” I say. My voice hisses like the wind on waves. I bring down the candlestick, hard like the woman knee deep in the water, knowing the fish will take her with it if it lives. I club the shark. I make it stop. I bring it home.

My face is warm and wet. I taste salt in my mouth, on my lips. I have forgotten if it is the taste of the ocean or the taste of blood in my mouth and on my tongue.

I am smiling.

Standing on the edge of the pool I am clutching the folds and ripples of my dress to my body, trying to remember how I got here. The body in the water floats serenely; turning in a lazy half-circle with the current of the pool jets. It almost looks like one of those floats people keep in their pools all summer long; an inflatable chaise lounge, upholstered in black.

The Wessex candlestick, my mother’s joy, is sparkling at the bottom of the pool. Its cut angles and crystal channels catch the pool light and turn it into a shimmering jewel in the deep water. It glimmers like a lost diamond; like a magical gem. The body floats above it, turning and turning in the current thrown off by the high-power pool jets.

I see his blood fanning out into the cool, clear pool water like rippling snakes.

His hands trail in the water, a pair of white, defenseless doves.

I breathe. I breathe. I hold onto my dress and breathe.

“Nathan!” I scream.

There is no answer but the gurgle and hush of the pool jets, hidden under the rippling crystal surface of the water.